Disney preparing for big things...

The post by THC got me thinking about what Disney has done over the past couple years. And after walking through all of the parks this past week, it got me thinking.

Disney's main focus seems to be on infrastructure. They have built new Hotels and expanded on old (see art of animation and Contemporary), they have expanded park pathways and allowed more flow of people (construction walls all over the parks, primarily for expanded walking areas), even New Fantasyland seems to primarily be a way to control the flow of people in the Magic Kingdom. The parking lots have expanded, Disney Springs is going to get larger and have better roads to control more traffic. And even the Magic Bands, a billion dollar investment, is all about controlling peoples waits and making a more controlled infrastructure.

This begs the question, why? Why spend billions of dollars on things that will not yield much profit. Clearly building a new land like Star Wars or even Avatar will rake in a lot of guests and therefore profits, but the Magic Bands, bigger walkways, all these infrastructure developments cannot be bringing in much profit, so what is it all for?

I talked to a cast member at Animal Kingdom, who said that Animal Kingdom is in for a lot of, "groundbreaking, yet-to-be announced developments." She said Avatar and the nighttime entertainment were only part of what was coming to Animal Kingdom. We are also aware of all the rumors about Star Wars at Hollywood Studios (and star wars weekends may be a sort of test run). And a new attraction has been announced for EPCOT.

Could it be that Disney is setting up for the mass of people that will come along with the new developments? Could it be that Disney World is about to get massive attractions to merit all the infrastructure changes? Any thoughts on this?

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